


fine print and other tricks

by siojo



Category: One Piece
Genre: Fae & Fairies, Fairy deals, Gen, Memory Loss, Mentioned Canonical Character Death, mentioned fix it, mentioned time travel
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-03-14
Updated: 2018-03-14
Packaged: 2019-03-31 05:40:03
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,145
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13968537
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/siojo/pseuds/siojo
Summary: Sabo doesn't remember going to the beach. He doesn't remember sitting down, or what anyone is talking about, but he does know that something is different about Koala and the world looks wrong. He knows, even if he doesn't understand why.





	fine print and other tricks

**Author's Note:**

  * For [ariririsu](https://archiveofourown.org/users/ariririsu/gifts).



> so, the one thing that should be known, if it's not obvious, is that sabo's memories while they are back, aren't all there? they're jumbled and scatter. he needs something to jumpstart them.
> 
> HAPPY WHITE DAY ARI!

Sabo doesn’t actually know why they’re at the beach, his hat on the sand by his side and his shirt untucked as Koala sits down beside him in the silence. It’s unnaturally silent and Sabo feels like if he speaks, the words will be devoured by that quiet before anyone can hear them. Not even the group of people, other revolutionaries taking the time off that they have, that Sabo knows is hovering somewhere behind them can’t be heard.

 

“If you could have been there,” Koala asks after a long moment, leaning back on her hands and staring at the sky. Koala never looks at someone when she asks the most difficult questions. Except the sky is bright as sunrise, bright and something is off color about it, something unnatural. “At the execution. Would you want to? See it all fall to pieces yourself?’

 

“Who says that I couldn’t help? That everyone I love wouldn’t have lived?” Sabo twirls his drink in his hand and remembers Luffy’s face when he had told Sabo about Ace’s death. The way Luffy looked so broken and there was never going to be a way for Sabo to fix it. There’s no way to fix anything. “Wouldn’t you? If you could save someone precious to you, wouldn’t you do it?” If he could save  _ Ace _ .

 

Koala smiles and something about it isn’t right. The way her lips curl and the way her teeth show when they shouldn’t, the brightness of her eyes. Something that seems almost right, but there’s something horribly wrong. Wrong enough that it makes something in Sabo scream. Like someone is trying to pretend they are Koala but isn’t, but Sabo doesn’t understand why he knows that.

 

“What would you trade?” Koala, who isn’t Koala, asks with a mouth full of teeth that are almost as sharp as Hack’s. “For a chance to go back and save your brother’s life, what would you trade?”

 

It’s not Sabo that answers, but he has one, hovering there on the tip of his tongue because Sabo would trade anything for his brothers, “You already took his memories,” The voice is unknown but it makes Sabo’s heartache, turning to see who it is. Ace without a hole through his chest like Luffy told him, smiling with his hat hanging from his back, “You took his memories already, why should he have to pay twice for something? That’s not how deals work, no the one that we made, at least. ”

 

“Yeah!” And there’s Luffy, bounding up to them from somewhere other, appearing between one heartbeat and the next, smiling brighter than Sabo can remember as he slams into Ace, arms and legs holding onto him like he expects Ace to vanish. “You can’t make him pay for things twice! That’s cheating,” He wraps his arms around Ace again, a double loop, crushing for anyone else. “You died.”

 

Ace smiles, sad but not bitter, he’s only ever been bitter about his father as far as Sabo can remember, “I know, I’m sorry. I didn’t want to, but I’m your big brother, I couldn’t let you die. You’re still not the Pirate King, yet.”

 

“Ace has paid too,” Sabo says blinking in confusion because that’s not what he had wanted to say. That wasn’t going to be what he said at all, but it feels right. It feels like it’s what he should be saying. Sabo wonders if it’s something that is tangled into the web of memories from before, the ones that he hasn’t had the time to pay attention to. “You don’t take away the chance to be told about your mother without reason. No one ever seems to know about Portgas D Rouge if we ask, seems to find any record of her..”

 

Not-Koala smiles, sharp and dangerous, but resign, like they know that they have lost already, “Oh my, what clever boys. The one who dealt with you must have read off all the fine print, must have had to watch you like a hawk to keep you from changing the terms. Then you must know, there’s still one of you who hasn’t paid.”

 

“Luffy’s price is the same as mine, after all, who wouldn’t have heard of Monkey D Dragon’s wife? Where would you hide a woman meeting with someone the marines wanted dead, long enough for her to give birth without a hunt?” Ace’s smile is, has always been, something sharper than should be considered a smile on anyone else, but it’s so very Ace that it makes Sabo wonder what kind of dream this could be.

 

None of it can be real, not with both Ace and Luffy here. Ace is two years dead and Luffy is the Ocean only knows where, while Sabo’s own Revolutionaries are scattered, Baltigo gone and the Marines on their heels. This beach was burned to ashes by a Buster Call the day that they lost it. It’s a dream.

 

“When we were little,” Ace says and Sabo wonders if this is what Ace sounded like before his death. “There was a hill that we were never supposed to play on,” Sabo remembers because they never followed that rule. “And one day, someone asked us, if we wanted to make a deal.”

 

“Sabo gave up that memory too,” Luffy whispers loud in the silence. “He gave up a lotta memories but you broke the deal.”

 

Not-Koala growls, “I didn’t break our deal!”

 

“You promised that none of us would die before we wanted to,” Ace counters. “You swore that unless we wanted to die, then we would live, i promised Luffy that I wouldn’t die because you promised me that, and then I died, why else would Sabo get his memories back? I bet if Luffy began to ask, someone would know who his mother was. You broke our deal.”

 

Ace doesn’t sound mad, but he’s firm. He’s, Sabo doesn’t know what he is, but it aches, Ace grew up without him. He grow up thinking that one day, he could see Sabo again and he died when he shouldn’t have. None of them should have, they shouldn’t be dead.

 

“You were such tricky children,” Not-Koala sighs, her eyes bright. “So what do I owe for my forfeit?”

 

“A do over,” Luffy states grinning. “To go back to the days before Ace died. We get to go back, with all our memories. And we get to save Ace.”

 

“That’s fair,” Not-Koala says slowly, her voice echoing louder. “Then you will get what you want. May you get what you want to.”

 

“We can’t die,” Ace reminds her, smirking. “We’re going to get exactly what we want.”

 

Not-Koala stares at the space where the three had been, smiling to herself, “I wonder who taught them to read the fine print.” She takes a sip of her drink. “I wonder if they’ll win.”


End file.
